


Aletheia

by domesticadventures



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Coda, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s11e06 Our Little World, Frottage, Happy Ending, M/M, Miscommunication, Season/Series 11, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-16
Updated: 2015-11-16
Packaged: 2018-05-01 20:31:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5219801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/domesticadventures/pseuds/domesticadventures
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They stand in tense silence, glaring at each other across the table, as they wait for Sam to leave the room.</p><p>It’s always like this between them, Cas thinks: constantly waiting for the right moment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aletheia

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to [Cecilia](http://archiveofourown.org/users/propinquitous/) and [Vivian](http://archiveofourown.org/users/some_stars/) for holding my hand through this <3

They stand in tense silence, glaring at each other across the table, as they wait for Sam to leave the room.

It’s always like this between them, Cas thinks: constantly waiting for the right moment.

“So,” Dean says, as soon as he’s sure Sam is out of earshot. “You wanna tell me what’s really going on here?”

Cas sighs, shoulders sagging. “I already told you,” he says. “Metatron isn’t a threat. He isn’t going to--”

Dean slams a hand on the table. “That’s not the point,” he says, punctuating the last word with a jab of his finger. “The shit he pulled, Cas...How are you not angry as hell about what he’s done to the angels? To _you?_ How could you just let him _go?_ ”

Cas bristles at that. He _is_ angry. He’s furious about what Metatron has done to him and to his siblings and to Dean. Especially, he thinks sometimes, about what Metatron has done to Dean. He can’t keep the trembling rage out of his voice as he says, “I _was_ angry, Dean. I was so angry that it was the only thing that managed to get me out of the bunker. I couldn’t manage it until I saw his face on TV. That’s how angry I was. I still am.”

Dean pushes himself up off the table, straightening suddenly. Something in his expression shifts, like he’s recalibrating. “Wait,” he says, after a few beats. “When we talked, earlier, and I said you didn’t sound good. Was that. Was I right?”

 _Bad weird,_ Dean had said. Cas had thought it apt, at the time. But he had felt good weird about that--about Dean asking after him--for a few glorious moments, before he realized the real purpose of the call. He laughs bitterly at the memory, the excitement and the subsequent disappointment. He says, “For a minute, I thought you called just to see how I was doing. But you were seeing if I was ready to throw myself back into the fray. If I could be useful to you again.” He takes a breath, tilting his head back and rolling his eyes heavenward, as if there’s anyone there willing or able to help him. “But yes,” he adds, looking back down, pinning Dean with his gaze. “You were correct.”

Dean swallows audibly. He opens his mouth and closes it again, teeth clicking together. There’s a tense silence while Cas waits to see if Dean will deny his accusation, but he doesn’t. Dean’s jaw works.

“You tried to leave?” Dean asks, finally. “Before you saw Metatron on TV?”

“I did,” Cas says, looking down at the table resolutely, tracing a finger over the lines of the map. “But the second I reached for the door, I remembered--” He hesitates. _Remembered_ doesn’t seem right, isn’t visceral enough to describe what he experienced. “I saw myself--I _felt_ myself hitting you, felt it like I was living it all over again. And not just hitting you, but watching Hannah die. Killing my brothers. Trying to kill Crowley. Almost being killed by y--”

He catches himself at the last second, sucking in a breath, flicking his eyes up briefly to Dean’s face.

He looks exactly as stricken as Cas feared. He looks back down at the table, waiting for whatever Dean is going to spit back at him in retribution.

Instead, Dean leans back onto the table. He says, simply, voice flat, “You can say it.”

He could. He could say it, but he doesn’t want to. He wants to forget it, forget all of it. He wishes none of it had ever happened. But it did, and that’s the entire problem.

“Metatron said I'm scarred,” Cas says instead, voice low, words directed at the table. “That I'm paralyzed by trauma and fear. And he was right.” He can hear Dean suck in a breath as though preparing to protest, but he continues before Dean can gather his thoughts. “I’ve let myself be manipulated, let others make my choices for me. Even when I was human, I just gave up. I had a choice, but I just gave up. I was pathetic. I saw Metatron being human and pathetic, and I couldn’t do it.” He clenches his hands into fists where they hang at his sides. “He was right. I'm scared. I'm broken. A failure at everything I’ve tried. I'm a bad angel. A bad human. A bad friend.” He’s an angel, now, and his voice shouldn’t crack and his breath shouldn’t stutter and his chest shouldn’t ache, but it does, it does, all of it happens anyway.

“Cas,” Dean says, voice strained. “Why would you say that?”

He says the first bitter words that spring to his lips. “Because it’s true.”

“No, it’s--” Dean starts, but Cas interrupts before he can finish.

He says, “How did Amara get away.”

Dean throws his hands up in exasperation. “I told you, she overp--”

Cas scoffs. “You’re lying. I told you the truth about Metatron and you’re still lying to me about Amara. So why should I believe you? Why should I believe anything you say?” He stands there breathing hard, clenching and unclenching his hands.

Dean says, helplessly, “Cas.”

For a second, Cas finds himself thinking, absurdly, that maybe this would have gone differently if the table wasn’t between them. But of course it’s there, keeping either of them from closing the gap. There’s always something.

Cas turns and walks away. He can feel Dean’s eyes on his back, watching him go.

He goes back to Sam’s room out of habit. The moment he steps inside, he realizes his mistake. Sam is lying in bed with his eyes closed and his headphones on, but he looks up when Cas pauses in the doorway.

“Hey, Cas,” Sam says. He doesn’t look upset by the intrusion, only tired. “Not that you’re not welcome here, but, uh…”

“It’s all right, Sam,” Cas says, to spare Sam the hassle of having to kick him out. “It’s your room.”

Sam relaxes slightly. “I just need some time alone, you know?”

“Of course,” Cas says, though he doesn’t understand at all. He’s tired of being alone. Of feeling like it’s his only choice, much of the time.

Cas turns to go, but before he steps back out into the hallway, Sam says, “Hey, Cas?”

“Yes, Sam?”

Sam hesitates for a moment before he says, quietly, “Do you think--do you think they can feel her, too? You think they know the darkness is back, down there in the cage?”

Cas understands what it means, that Sam doesn’t even want to say their names. He thinks Michael and Lucifer are probably acutely aware of Amara’s return. They probably know better than anyone, they who first helped God lock her away.

He doesn’t want to have that conversation, though, at least not yet. He doesn’t think it would help Sam, anyway. He doesn’t think it would help him, either. He’s already occupied with worrying about himself. He doesn’t want to worry about this, too.

“I don’t know, Sam,” Cas says, sighing. “Would it matter if they did?”

“No,” Sam says. “I guess not.”

Cas can hear the doubt in Sam’s voice, can see him frowning. But he lets it go for now. “There will be time to worry about that later,” Cas says. “For now, can I borrow your laptop? So I can watch Netflix somewhere else?”

“Oh,” Sam says. “Yeah, of course.” Sam sets his headphones aside, standing to grab his laptop from his bag. As he hands it to Cas, he claps him on the shoulder, saying, “Enjoy.”

Cas nods and heads back into the hallway. He can feel Sam watching him as he leaves, too, the weight of his gaze different from Dean’s.

He wanders the halls, opening the various doors until he finds an appropriate room. It’s crowded with unused furniture, stale linens, dusty boxes. He winds his way through the gaps until he spots an armchair, moving a box containing a couple mismatched lamps from the seat before settling into it and opening the laptop.

Within a few minutes, he has Netflix opened and is scrolling through the options. He picks something at random, turning the volume on low as the movie starts. He sits there miserably, trying and failing to focus on the plot, and thinks: _I was wrong. I don’t have everything I need here._

He’s halfway through the movie whose name he’s already forgotten when the light in the room shifts. He hears, from around the spare bookshelves and the stacks of boxes, Dean’s voice saying, “Cas?”

Cas sighs. He doesn’t look up from the screen. He says, “Yes?”

Dean navigates through the stacks of junk until he’s standing facing Cas in the cramped quarters. “Seriously?” he asks, when he sees Cas. He has this strange look on his face, something tired and sad that doesn’t quite match the incredulity in his voice.

“What?” Cas asks.

Dean gestures to Cas, the laptop, the chair. “Is that what this is to you?” he asks. “Somewhere to quarantine yourself? Somewhere you can hide yourself away?”

That’s not what it is to Cas at all. Not what he wants it to be, at least. He feels safe here. He doesn’t understand why Dean seems so eager for him to leave, why he seems so unhappy about Cas’ desire to stay here, to find some semblance of peace, even if it comes in the form of distractions.

“Do you want me to leave?” he asks.

“Christ, Cas,” Dean says, and the laugh that follows is so quick and harsh that Cas finds himself flinching at the sound. “That’s...that’s not. That’s not it. I just don’t want it to be some kind of self-imposed prison for you.”

“What do you want it to be to me?” Cas murmurs, hands gripping the sides of the keyboard.

Dean shoves at the nearest box before running his hand through his hair. “I don't know!” he says, half shouting, but his voice is oddly muffled by the castaway items, like they’re absorbing his anger, denying him the satisfaction. There’s a long pause as Dean rubs his hand down over his face, then holds it in front of himself in an abortive gesture before letting it hang at his side. He shifts on his feet as he adds, quietly, “Home?”

There’s something in Dean’s voice, something desperate and pleading, that resonates with the ache in Cas’ chest.

Cas looks up as Dean looks away, eyes sliding off Cas’ face and fixing on a point on the wall behind him. Cas closes the laptop slowly. “Dean,” he says. He’s trying to figure out what he’s supposed to say. “I--”

“Can we not do this here?” Dean says, shifting to lean with his elbow propped on a box, his hand covering his eyes. “Please?”

“Okay,” Cas says tentatively, setting the laptop aside. “Where do you want to go?”

Dean huffs an exasperated sigh. He says, “Where do _you_ want to go?”

Cas gets the impression he’s being tested. He hesitates, not wanting to give the wrong answer.

Dean must get tired of waiting for him to respond, because he sighs again, asking, “There something wrong with the room we set up for you?”

“No,” Cas says. “I just…” He doesn’t know how to explain that he feels more alone in there than anywhere else in the bunker. The room is furnished entirely with items they retrieved from a storage room just like this one, spare items neither Dean nor Sam wanted in their own spaces. At least when Cas is in Sam’s room or the library or the kitchen, he’s surrounded by things they chose to have around. Things they picked because they were sentimental or decorative or just plain practical. But there’s nothing of Cas in the room they set aside for him, nothing of any of them, just the remnants of dead Men of Letters, men who would sooner have experimented on him than let him stay here as a guest.

Dean waits, tapping his fingers on the top of the box.

Cas says, “That room isn’t mine.”

This was clearly the wrong answer, because Dean goes very, very still. His throat works before he chokes out, “Excuse me?”

“It’s not mine,” Cas says, more certain this time, in spite of Dean’s reaction. “I don’t want--”

“Wow,” Dean interrupts. “That’s just great. Wish you had told me a little sooner. Would have saved myself the trouble of going to all that work for someone who doesn’t even want to be here. You know what, Cas? Fuck you.” He turns on his heel, heading back out toward the hallway, away from Cas, away from this conversation.

Something twists in Cas’ gut, and the sensation is so wildly unpleasant that a switch flips, just like it did when he was with Metatron. Next thing he knows, he’s standing so suddenly that he kicks the box he had moved from the chair, the lamps rattling ominously. He shouts after Dean, “What would you know about what I want?” He thinks, vindictively, that he must finally be doing something right, because Dean stops in his tracks. “You’re barely even here!” he continues. “You find any excuse you can to leave and you only call when you need something and we’re barely ever in the same room except when, apparently, we need to yell at each other, or. Or beat each other bloody! You know what I want? To actually feel like a part of your life! Not just some...some fixture, some tool you shove in a spare room until you have use for it!”

He shouldn’t be having this kind of reaction, he knows, he shouldn’t be standing here with his arms flung wide and his eyes burning with tears and his chest still aching, always aching. But here he is.

Dean turns back around. He doesn’t look angry so much as scared and hurt, and Cas can feel his own guilt like a physical thing, bile rising in his throat, burning at the back of his mouth. He reminds himself that he shouldn’t be feeling any of this, doesn’t need to be feeling it. As usual, it doesn’t do him a bit of good.

Dean doesn’t say anything, just stands there looking stricken until finally Cas says, still breathing hard, “What?”

Dean laughs a little hysterically, scrubbing one hand over his face again as he steadies himself against an empty bookshelf with the other. He says, “I'm going to my room. You can come, if you want. I mean. I want you to come. I--fuck.”

Dean turns and he walks away. He nearly trips over a box of knickknacks on his way out, and Cas watches him go.

Cas stands there staring at the empty doorway until he’s able to collect himself, and then he wipes a sleeve across his eyes and follows.

He finds Dean sitting on the edge of his bed with his elbows on his knees, the heels of his hands pressed against his eyes. He hesitates at the doorway, and when he says, “Dean, can I--” Dean starts, looking up at Cas like he’s surprised to see him standing there.

“Yeah,” Dean says, voice hoarse. “Yeah, you can come in.”

Cas steps into the room, moving to sit next to Dean on the bed at what he hopes is a respectable distance. Close enough to be friendly, but not close enough to be too intimate, too presumptive. He could reach out and touch Dean, if he wanted, but there’s enough space between them that it won’t happen by accident.

Dean straightens, shifting so he’s pressing against his legs with his hands, fingers clenched against his knees. He frowns at the floor and says, “She did overpower me. But even if she hadn’t, I -- I know I wouldn’t have been able to hurt her. I wouldn’t have been able to do it. And I’m.” He pauses, drawing in a steadying breath. “I'm scared what that means. Scared that I'm still not in full control. I'm scared about the things I've done and the person I've been and the person I'm becoming. So, yeah, I called to ask for your help. Because we need it. Because I need it, because I'm scared and I don’t know what to do. But that doesn’t mean...that doesn’t mean I don’t care how you’re doing. I would care even if you couldn’t offer any additional help. I would still want you here.”

Cas says, looking down at his hands, “I don’t understand.” Because he doesn’t. He wants all of that to be true, but he doesn’t know what he has to offer besides the things he’s already screwed up.

Dean shifts on the bed, moves so he’s sitting with one leg up on the mattress, shin pressing against Cas’ thigh. “Hey,” Dean says, like he’s trying to get Cas’ attention, get him to look up at him. He can’t bring himself to do it, though. When he doesn’t respond, Dean reaches up and settles a hand on Cas’ shoulder. “Hey,” Dean says again, squeezing slightly. “What you said earlier about being--being bad at all that stuff. That may be your truth. But it’s not mine.”

He remembers, suddenly, being human and hurting, being in that church where he should have felt close to God but instead felt so abandoned and alone. He remembers the woman he had spoken to, the one whose name he never learned, telling him that his lack of faith didn’t cancel what she believed. He thinks of her conviction, her unshakeable belief that someone was listening.

Maybe Dean is listening, Cas realizes, in that moment. Maybe Dean believes things that Cas doesn’t.

“Oh,” Cas breathes.

He can still feel Dean’s eyes on him. After a few seconds of hesitation, Dean slides his hand from Cas’ shoulder to the side of his neck, fingers brushing against his hair, and reaches out slowly with the other, like he’s waiting to see if Cas will flinch away from him. Like he’s asking permission. In answer, Cas stays still, doesn’t move. He tracks the movement of Dean’s hand with his eyes, but he doesn’t shy away, because he doesn’t want to. Dean sets his hand against the side of Cas’ face and turns his head so they’re facing one another.

“What are you doing?” Cas asks, and his voice comes out more shaking and uncertain than he means it to.

Dean looks at him for a minute, scared and hopeful and searching. “Giving you something else to remember,” he says. “Giving you a different truth. If you want.”

Cas wants it. He wants it more than anything, so he closes his eyes and draws in a breath and nods.

Dean leans in and kisses him, slow and careful.

Cas curls his fingers into the fabric of Dean’s shirt and kisses him back.

“You can take this off, if you want,” Dean says, when they part. He slides one hand down to tug at Cas’ coat, leaving the other on his face, stroking his thumb against Cas’ cheekbone. “You can leave your coat here, and your shoes, and your suit jacket. You can stay.”

“Okay,” Cas says.

They stand slowly, moving to take off their layers, watching each other out of the corners of their eyes, like they’re afraid the other will disappear if they look away. Dean strips down to his shirt and boxers, Cas to his pants and his button-down. He wonders if he should remove those, too, if he should undress all the way down to his undershirt and his boxers. He doesn’t know if he’s allowed. He doesn’t want to presume.

Dean gets into bed first, and if he finds Cas’ state of undress strange, he doesn’t comment. He slides under the covers and then pulls them back on the unoccupied side, a silent invitation.

Cas accepts, climbing in next to him, waiting for Dean to flip off his lamp. They reach for each other in the dark, pulling each other close, meeting halfway.

They lie there with their arms wrapped around one another, Cas’ head tucked under Dean’s chin, Dean breathing into his hair.

Cas doesn’t need to sleep, but he does, anyway.

He wakes with his face still pressed against Dean’s chest. He shifts carefully, pulling back just enough in Dean’s loose grip to watch his face as he sleeps. His eyes shift beneath his closed eyelids; his mouth occasionally twists into a frown. He looks troubled, even in sleep.

Dean wakes while Cas is still staring at him. He sucks in a breath like he’s surprised and he says, “You’re here.”

“Yes,” Cas says, and Dean’s features smooth out a little. Not all the way, but a little.

Dean reaches out and brushes his fingers through Cas’ hair. He smiles faintly, then leans in and brushes his lips against Cas’, just barely. He says, “I'm glad you’re here.” He kisses Cas again and leans in to press their foreheads together and murmurs, “I want you here.”

“I want to be here,” Cas says, because he thought it was obvious, before, but it turns out it wasn’t. It turns out it’s the right thing to say, because Dean holds Cas’ face in both hands and kisses him in earnest. He rolls Cas onto his back and straddles his hips and moves against him as slowly and carefully as he’s been kissing him.

When Cas gasps into Dean’s mouth, he pulls back long enough to breathe “I want you here” against Cas’ skin.

Cas works his hands under Dean’s shirt until they’re resting against his shoulder blades. They’re having a conversation now, he realizes. One without words, the kind so common between them and yet, this time, so different. They’re telling each other what they want with each roll of their hips, with each moan and kiss and touch. 

Cas comes with his breath stuttering and his fingers digging into Dean’s skin, and Dean follows shortly after, trembling as he presses his cheek against Cas’.

They lie there for a few minutes, after, still curled around each other as their breathing slows. When Dean regains his faculties enough to do so, he props himself back up on his elbows, fingers stroking slow circles where they’re still buried in Cas’ hair.

When Cas opens his eyes, Dean asks, “How are you feeling?”

Cas thinks of the last time he was like this, flat on his back, looking up at Dean. He says, “Relative to everything else? Getting better.”

Dean hums his approval. He says, “And you know where you are?”

Cas says, tentative and hopeful, “Home?”

“Yeah,” Dean breathes, smiling down at him. “Home.”


End file.
